Evidence suggested that a plan existed to shoot rioters in Derry on Bloody Sunday and that it was known by the then British prime minister, Mr Edward Heath, and the Stormont prime minister, Mr Brian Faulkner, a leading counsel asserted yesterday.
Lord Gifford QC, representing the family of Bloody Sunday victim James Wray, submitted that the evidence indicated the plan to shoot "selected ringleaders" was implemented and approved "by the highest members of the political and military hierarchies".
Lord Gifford said this was probably the most sensitive issue with which the tribunal of inquiry "will have to grapple". But he and his colleagues would set down facts from which it could be inferred that the most senior political leadership, up to and including the two prime ministers, as well as their most senior military advisers, "knew that it was intended as part of the military response to the march that firing would be directed at young people who were not gunmen and who, at worst, were rioters".
In support of this assertion, counsel examined in detail the various military and political papers secured by the inquiry, including minutes of cabinet committee meetings in the days and weeks before Bloody Sunday.
He pointed to the memo written by Gen Robert Ford on January 7th, 1972, in which he said he was "coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot selected ringleaders amongst the DYH (Derry Young Hooligans), after clear warnings have been issued". Counsel commented that, just 23 days after that "terrifying statement", Gen Ford was on the spot in Derry "overseeing an operation which might well be described in army terms as shooting selected ringleaders of the DYH . . ." Counsel also quoted a section of a statement from one paratrooper, soldier 027, in which he said remarks at a briefing before Bloody Sunday "revolved around the possibility of getting kills the following day".
Lord Gifford suggested Gen Ford's "strong and potentially controversial" memo to his superior officer, the GOC, Gen Harry Tuzo, must have gone forward to the Chief of the General Staff, Gen Carver, and other senior MoD personnel. Yet there was no inkling in any document that Gen Ford was ever reprimanded. Counsel said Gen Ford's suggestion raised legal issues, but in the documents so far disclosed "there is a complete absence of any legal advice emanating from any quarter of government.
"There must have been advice coming both from the government's legal advisers in London and from the army's legal advisers . . . We do not have it. We ask the tribunal to request it . . . (as) a matter of great significance."
British cabinet committee minutes and high-level advisory memos indicated that the tactics to be used on Bloody Sunday were not being left as an operational matter to the army, counsel observed.
These tactics were to be determined by the Joint Security Committee at Stormont, but a line from London was to be taken by the GOC and the UK representative. What that line was could not be discerned from the documents so far made available.
However, the papers available showed that the crucial decision on how to deal with the march was being considered by a number of high-level bodies, policy groups and cabinet committees.
Counsel said it was "really deplorable" that the Ministry of Defence was not directly represented at the inquiry, and he suggested it should consider issuing "a strong request" for a representative to be present.
He noted that the former British prime minister, Lord Callaghan, has admitted in a letter to the inquiry that certain information from army sources "would never have been committed to paper but would have been passed by word of mouth". But if Gen Ford, with Gen Tuzo's approval, had decided to implement his plan, "he could not have done so without the approval first of his superior officers, who in turn would need the approval of the political leadership of the country".
Lord Gifford outlined the verbatim record of Mr Edward Heath's telephone conversation with the then Taoiseach, Mr Jack Lynch, on the night of Bloody Sunday. He said it revealed "a cold and merciless response" by Mr Heath to the concerns expressed, and the line he took was "one of a leader who had no pity for those who had been slain".
The inquiry's legal team has been unable to make contact with the UUP deputy leader, Mr John Taylor, who is a potentially important witness.
Lord Gifford QC pointed out that Mr Taylor, who was then minister of state for home affairs in the Stormont government, had chaired a crucial meeting of the Joint Security Committee at Stormont three days before Bloody Sunday.
Mr Taylor is a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and is MP for Strangford.